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The aroma of freshly baked bread is one of the most incredible smells, especially if you’ve baked it yourself. Having had a go at a few of James Morton’s Brilliant Bread recipes with mixed success, I was really excited to attend the day breadmaking class at Real Patisserrie in Brighton, an amazing cafe/bakery that make the best fruit danish.

Using a sour dough starter, we made focaccia loaves, rye sour dough, white rolls and baguettes, and learnt all the kneading, proving, dusting techniques of a professional. We also had a tour of the kitchens and learnt all about the running of a successful bakery.

Coming away at the end of the day with new bread-making skills, the mystery of sour dough starters revealed – and a little pot of starter to make our own with, and a bag full to the brim of warm bread, was just incredible.

x Loulou

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To celebrate St Patrick’s Day, I adapted our classic chocolate brownie recipe by adding a little Irish cheer – 4 tablespoons of Baileys, to be precise. The Baileys gives the gooey brownies a really indulgent kick – . Having set myself the challenge of giving up drinking a while ago (luckily it was the general Pick Me Up consensus that cooking with alcohol was allowed), the amount of Baileys was just right for me, but you can add a little more if you like. Sláinte!

X Loulou

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Last night we had a mini macaron-making party at our friend Ollie’s house. It was the first time we’d attempted to make macarons so, setting to – whisking the egg whites, carefully weighing out the ground almonds, and drawing out our template with an egg cup – we really had no idea how they would turn out. The results were varied and it was pretty labour intensive, but we learnt a lot!

We started off making vanilla flavoured ones and then had a go at chocolate. The batch of vanilla definitely had the right shiny top and light, almondy consistency. Leaving the mixture to rest once you’ve piped it into rounds is absolutely necessary, it seems. A little impatient with the chocolate batch, we popped them into the oven before they’d had a chance to form a ‘shell’ on top, and they turned out more biscuit-like than macaron. Even so, with a dollop of chocolate ganache in the middle, they all tasted rather special and even looked like real macarons. Not bad for a first attempt.

We’ll post the recipe once we’ve perfected our technique but for now, take a look at some of our best macarons below…

x Ellie, Grace, Loulou

Thanks to Ollie for hosting, and providing the ingredients, recipe and photographic skills!